Whitney Acquires 32 Works from 2017 Biennial, Including Samara Golden and Raúl de Nieves Pieces

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Much of the first Whitney Biennial in the museum’s new building will be staying in the new building.

Thanks to a surge in trustee gifts and donations, the Whitney acquired 32 works from this year’s biennial, up from just 12 acquisitions that followed the last edition of the show, which occurred in 2014. (The museum took a three-year break between shows as it moved to its new location.)

The new additions to the collection include the show-stopping installations by Samara Golden and Raúl de Nieves that occupied the fifth-floor window spaces of the museum’s new home in the Meatpacking District and Henry Taylor’s portrait of Philandro Castile, as well as work by a slew of artists who are entering the collection for the first time.

“The committees really came together and were extremely generous, as they wanted to mark the occasion of the first biennial in the new building,” said Scott Rothkopf, deputy director for programs and chief curator at the Whitney, in a phone interview on Monday. “It took a village in a way to acquire so many works, because it wouldn’t be possible with our ordinary budget.”

Rothkopf added that, while new additions to the collection did indeed increase nearly threefold over the 2014 figure of 12, the works the museum was able to secure are also “of a larger scale and a larger value”—the installations by Golden and de Nieves being prime examples.

“Samara’s ambitious work—one of the most complex pieces she has made so far—deftly incorporated the museum’s architecture and the river views to create a captivating, psychically charged environment,” Christopher Y. Lew, the co-curator of the 2017 biennial alongside Mia Locks, said in a news release. “This generous gift helps the Whitney to continue its engagement with large-scale installation.”

Artists entering the museum’s collection for the first time include Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Shara Hughes, Carrie Moyer, Puppies Puppies, and Jessie Reeves.

“Although we’ve always collected from annuals and biennials, this year our biennial acquisitions feel like they have a new and stronger resonance within the context of our re-energized emerging artists program downtown,” Rothkopf said in an email. “We’ve acquired work from all of the solo shows, as well as examples by most of the artists in the group exhibitions ["Flatlands” and "Mirror Cells”]. At a time when so many emerging artists are being pursued so broadly by the market, including museums, we’ve found this strand of our program really serves as the bedrock of our contemporary acquisitions, because they grow out of a meaningful and publicly visible dialogue with our curators.”

The full list of works acquired is below.

Jo BaerIn the Land of the Giants (Spirals and Stars), 2012Promised gift of Pamela M. and Robert B. Goergen

Raúl de NievesBeginning & the end neither & the otherwise betwixt & between the end is the beginning & the end, 2017Purchase, with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee, Mariel and Jack Cayre, and Jackson Tang

John DivolaAbandoned Painting B, 2007Abandoned Paintings, 2007–08Purchase, with funds from the Photography Committee

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